A Statistical Look at Professional Poker

I don’t play casino poker because I don’t find it fun and don’t like to commit myself to sitting at a table for a long period of time. I keep my poker playing to taking my friends money. I find that to be much more fun. For this reason I don’t find too many stories about poker too interesting. Today, I found something of interest.

Professional poker player, Daniel Negreanu, broke down statistics from that were recently published by the World Poker Tour (WPT). He states that players need to make about $20,000 per tournament they play with entry fee being $10,000 and travel being another $10,000. $10,000 for travel seems a bit high, but I guess when you travel with others and travel big it all adds up.

Of the 176 poker professionals Negreanu noted that only 56 of them reach that $20,000 mark. That is just over 1/3rd of professional poker players that average break even. I’m surprised that the number is so low.